Cyprus World War II and Postwar Nationalism
Turkish quarter of Nicosia
Courtesy Office of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,"
Washington
Whatever their misgivings about British rule, Cypriots
were
staunch supporters of the Allied cause in World War II.
This was
particularly true after the invasion of Greece in 1940.
Conscription was not imposed on the colony, but 6,000
Cypriot
volunteers fought under British command during the Greek
campaign.
Before the war ended, more than 30,000 had served in the
British
forces.
As far as the island itself was concerned, it escaped
the war
except for limited air raids. As it had twenty-five years
earlier,
it became important as a supply and training base and as a
naval
station, but this time its use as an air base made it
particularly
significant to the overall Allied cause. Patriotism and a
common
enemy did not entirely erase enosis in the minds of Greek
Cypriots,
and propagandists remained active during the entire war,
particularly in London, where they hoped to gain friends
and
influence lawmakers. Hopes were sometimes raised by the
British
government during the period when Britain and Greece were
practically alone in the field against the Axis. British
foreign
secretary Anthony Eden, for example, hinted that the
Cyprus problem
would be resolved when the war had been won. Churchill,
then prime
minister, also made some vague allusions to the postwar
settlement
of the problem. The wartime governor of the island stated
without
equivocation that enosis was not being considered, but it
is
probable that the Greek Cypriots heard only those voices
that they
wanted to hear.
During the war, Britain made no move to restore the
constitution that it had revoked in 1931, to provide a new
one, or
to guarantee any civil liberties. After October 1941,
however,
political meetings were condoned, and permission was
granted by the
governor for the formation of political parties. Without
delay
Cypriot communists founded the Progressive Party of the
Working
People (Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou--AKEL) as the
successor
to an earlier communist party that had been established in
the
1920s and proscribed during the 1930s. Because of Western
wartime
alliances with the Soviet Union, the communist label in
1941 was
not the anathema that it later became; nevertheless, some
Orthodox
clerics and middle-class merchants were alarmed at the
appearance
of the new party. At the time, a loose federation of
nationalists
backed by the church and working for enosis and the
Panagrarian
Union of Cyprus (Panagrotiki Enosis Kyprou--PEK), the
nationalist
peasant association, opposed AKEL.
In the municipal elections of 1943, the first since the
British
crackdown of 1931, AKEL gained control of the important
cities of
Famagusta and Limassol. After its success at the polls,
AKEL
supported strikes, protested the absence of a popularly
elected
legislature, and continually stressed Cypriot grievances
incurred
under the rigid regime of the post-1931 period. Both
communists and
conservative groups advocated enosis, but for AKEL such
advocacy
was an expediency aimed at broadening its appeal. On other
matters,
communists and conservatives often clashed, sometimes
violently. In
January 1946, eighteen members of the communist-oriented
Pan-
Cyprian Federation of Labor (Pankypria Ergatiki
Omospondia--PEO)
were convicted of sedition by a colonial court and
sentenced to
varying prison terms. Later that year, a coalition of AKEL
and PEO
was victorious in the municipal elections, adding Nicosia
to the
list of cities having communist mayors.
In late 1946, the British government announced plans to
liberalize the colonial administration of Cyprus and to
invite
Cypriots to form a Consultative Assembly for the purpose
of
discussing a new constitution. Demonstrating their good
will and
conciliatory attitude, the British also allowed the return
of the
1931 exiles, repealed the 1937 religious laws, and
pardoned the
leftists who had been convicted of sedition in 1946.
Instead of
rejoicing, as expected by the British, the Greek Cypriot
hierarchy
reacted angrily, because there had been no mention of
enosis.
Response to the governor's invitations to the
Consultative
Assembly was mixed. The Church of Cyprus had expressed its
disapproval, and twenty-two Greek Cypriots declined to
appear,
stating that enosis was their sole political aim. In
October 1947,
the fiery bishop of Kyrenia was elected archbishop to
replace
Leontios, who had died suddenly of natural causes.
As Makarios II, the new archbishop continued to oppose
British
policy in general, and any policy in particular that did
not
actively promote enosis. Nevertheless, the assembly opened
in
November with eighteen members present. Of these, seven
were
Turkish Cypriots; two were Greek Cypriots without party
affiliations; one was a Maronite from the small minority
of non-
Orthodox Christians on the island; and eight were
AKEL-oriented
Greek Cypriots--usually referred to as the "left wing."
The eight
left-wing members proposed discussion of full
self-government, but
the presiding officer, Chief Justice Edward Jackson, ruled
that
full self-government was outside the competence of the
assembly.
This ruling caused the left wing to join the other members
in
opposition to the British. The deadlocked assembly
adjourned until
May 1948, when the governor attempted to break the
deadlock by
advancing new constitutional proposals.
The new proposals included provisions for a Legislative
Council
with eighteen elected Greek Cypriot members and four
elected
Turkish Cypriot members in addition to the colonial
secretary, the
attorney general, the treasurer, and the senior
commissioner as
appointed members. Elections were to be based on universal
adult
male suffrage, with Greek Cypriots elected from a general
list and
Turkish Cypriots from a separate communal register.
Women's
suffrage was an option to be extended if the assembly so
decided.
The presiding officer was to be a governor's appointee,
who could
not be a member of the council and would have no vote.
Powers were
reserved to the governor to pass or reject any bill
regardless of
the decision of the council, although in the event of a
veto he was
obliged to report his reasons to the British government.
The
governor's consent was also required before any bill
having to do
with defense, finance, external affairs, minorities, or
amendments
to the constitution could be introduced in the Legislative
Council.
In the political climate of the immediate post-World
War II
era, the proposals of the British did not come near
fulfilling the
expectations and aspirations of the Greek Cypriots. The
idea of
"enosis and only enosis" became even more attractive to
the general
population. Having observed this upsurge in popularity,
AKEL felt
obliged to shift from backing full self-government to
supporting
enosis, although the right-wing government in Greece was
bitterly
hostile to communism.
Meanwhile, the Church of Cyprus solidified its control
over the
Greek Cypriot community, intensified its activities for
enosis and,
after the rise of AKEL, opposed communism. Prominent among
its
leaders was Bishop Makarios, spiritual and secular leader
of the
Greek Cypriots. Born Michael Christodoulou Mouskos in 1913
to
peasant parents in the village of Pano Panayia, about
thirty
kilometers northeast of Paphos in the foothills of the
Troodos
Mountains, the future archbishop and president entered
Kykko
Monastery as a novice at age thirteen. His pursuit of
education
over the next several years took him from the monastery to
the
Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia, where he finished
secondary
school. From there he moved to Athens University as a
deacon to
study theology. After earning his degree in theology, he
remained
at the university during the World War II occupation,
studying law.
He was ordained as a priest in 1946, adopting the name
Makarios. A
few months after ordination, he received a scholarship
from the
World Council of Churches that took him to Boston
University for
advanced studies at the Theological College. Before he had
completed his studies at Boston, he was elected in
absentia bishop
of Kition. He returned to Cyprus in the summer of 1948 to
take up
his new office.
Makarios was consecrated as bishop on June 13, 1948, in
the
Cathedral of Larnaca. He also became secretary of the
Ethnarchy
Council, a position that made him chief political adviser
to the
archbishop and swept him into the mainstream of the enosis
struggle. His major accomplishment as bishop was planning
the
plebiscite that brought forth a 96 percent favorable vote
for
enosis in January 1950. In June Archbishop Makarios II
died, and in
October the bishop of Kition was elected to succeed him.
He took
office as Makarios III and, at age thirty-seven, was the
youngest
archbishop in the history of the Church of Cyprus. At his
inauguration, he pledged not to rest until union with
"Mother
Greece" had been achieved.
The plebiscite results and a petition for enosis were
taken to
the Greek Chamber of Deputies, where Prime Minister
Sophocles
Venizelos urged the deputies to accept the petition and
incorporate
the plea for enosis into national policy. The plebiscite
data were
also presented to the United Nations (UN) Secretariat in
New York,
with a request that the principle of self-determination be
applied
to Cyprus. Makarios himself appeared before the UN in
February 1951
to denounce British policy, but Britain held that the
Cyprus
problem was an internal issue not subject to UN
consideration.
In Athens, enosis was a common topic of coffeehouse
conversation, and a Cypriot native, Colonel George Grivas,
was
becoming known for his strong views on the subject.
Grivas, born in
1898 in the village of Trikomo about fifty kilometers
northeast of
Nicosia, was the son of a grain merchant. After elementary
education in the village school, he was sent to the
Pancyprian
Gymnasium. Reportedly a good student, Grivas went to
Athens at age
seventeen to enter the Greek Military Academy. As a young
officer
in the Greek army, he saw action in Anatolia during the
Greco-
Turkish War of 1920-22, in which he was wounded and cited
for
bravery. Grivas's unit almost reached Ankara during the
Anatolian
campaign, and he was sorely disappointed as the Greek
campaign
turned into disaster. However, he learned much about war,
particularly guerrilla war. When Italy invaded Greece in
1940, he
was a lieutenant colonel serving as chief of staff of an
infantry
division.
During the Nazi occupation of Greece, Grivas led a
right-wing
extremist organization known by the Greek letter X (Chi),
which
some authors describe as a band of terrorists and others
call a
resistance group. In his memoirs, Grivas said that it was
later
British propaganda that blackened the good name of X. At
any rate,
Grivas earned a reputation as a courageous military
leader, even
though his group was eventually banned. Later, after an
unsuccessful try in Greek politics, he turned his
attention to his
original home, Cyprus, and to enosis. For the rest of his
life,
Grivas was devoted to that cause.
In anticipation of an armed struggle to achieve enosis,
Grivas
toured Cyprus in July 1951 to study the people and terrain
(his
first visit in twenty years). He discussed his ideas with
Makarios
but was disappointed by the archbishop's reservations
about the
effectiveness of a guerrilla uprising. From the beginning,
and
throughout their relationship, Grivas resented having to
share
leadership with the archbishop. Makarios, concerned about
Grivas's
extremism from their very first meeting, preferred to
continue
diplomatic efforts, particularly efforts to get the UN
involved.
Entry of both Greece and Turkey into the North Atlantic
Treaty
Organization (NATO) made settlement of the Cyprus issue
more
important to the Western powers, but no new ideas were
forthcoming.
One year after the reconnaissance trip by Grivas, a secret
meeting
was arranged in Athens to bring together like-minded
people in a
Cyprus liberation committee. Makarios chaired the meeting.
Grivas,
who saw himself as the sole leader of the movement, once
again was
disappointed by the more moderate views of the archbishop.
The
feelings of uneasiness that arose between the soldier and
the
cleric never dissipated. In the end, the two became bitter
enemies.
In July 1954, Henry L. Hopkinson, minister of state for
the
colonies, speaking in the British House of Commons,
announced the
withdrawal of the 1948 constitutional proposals for Cyprus
in favor
of an alternative plan. He went on to state, "There are
certain
territories in the Commonwealth which, owing to their
peculiar
circumstances, can never expect to be fully independent."
Hopkinson's "never" and the absence of any mention of
enosis doomed
the alternative from the beginning.
In August 1954, Greece's UN representative formally
requested
that self-determination for the people of Cyprus be
included on the
agenda of the General Assembly's next session. That
request was
seconded by a petition to the secretary general from
Archbishop
Makarios. The British position continued to be that the
subject was
an internal issue. Turkey rejected the idea of the union
of Cyprus
and Greece; its UN representative maintained that "the
people of
Cyprus were no more Greek than the territory itself." The
Turkish
Cypriot community had consistently opposed the Greek
Cypriot enosis
movement, but had generally abstained from direct action
because
under British rule the Turkish minority status and
identity were
protected. The expressed attitude of the Cyprus Turkish
Minority
Association was that, in the event of British withdrawal,
control
of Cyprus should simply revert to Turkey. (This position
ignored
the fact that Turkey gave up all rights and claims in the
1923
Treaty of Lausanne.) Turkish Cypriot identification with
Turkey had
grown stronger, and after 1954 the Turkish government had
become
increasingly involved as the Cyprus problem became an
international
issue. On the island, an underground political
organization known
as Volkan (volcano) was formed. Volkan eventually
established in
1957 the Turkish Resistance Organization (Türk Mukavemet
Teskilāti--TMT), a guerrilla group that fought for Turkish
Cypriot
interests. In Greece, enosis was a dominant issue in
politics, and
pro-enosis demonstrations became commonplace in Athens.
Cyprus was
also bombarded with radio broadcasts from Greece pressing
for
enosis.
In the late summer and fall of 1954, the Cyprus problem
intensified. On Cyprus the colonial government threatened
advocates
of enosis with up to five years' imprisonment and warned
that
antisedition laws would be strictly enforced. The
archbishop defied
the law, but no action was taken against him.
Anti-British sentiments were exacerbated when Britain
concluded
an agreement with Egypt for the evacuation of forces from
the Suez
Canal zone and began moving the headquarters of the
British Middle
East Land and Air Forces to Cyprus. Meanwhile, Grivas had
returned
to the island surreptitiously and made contact with
Makarios. In
December the UN General Assembly, after consideration of
the Cyprus
item placed on the agenda by Greece, adopted a New Zealand
proposal
that, using diplomatic jargon, announced the decision "not
to
consider the problem further for the time being, because
it does
not appear appropriate to adopt a resolution on the
question of
Cyprus." Reaction to the setback at the UN was immediate
and
violent. Greek Cypriot leaders called a general strike,
and
schoolchildren left their classrooms to demonstrate in the
streets.
These events were followed by the worst rioting since
1931.
Makarios, who was at the UN in New York during the
trouble,
returned to Nicosia on January 10, 1955. At a meeting with
Makarios, Grivas stated that their group needed a name and
suggested that it be called the National Organization of
Cypriot
Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston--EOKA).
Makarios
agreed, and, within a few months, EOKA was widely known.
Data as of January 1991
|